ailsaek

I believe that the major purpose of big government is to keep the people with money and connections from running roughshod over everyone else. Smaller governments are also for maintaining local infrastructures and local peace and the like, and for making sure that commonly-held resources are protected. Communities will probably have different definitions of "commonly held resources," but the water table definitely belongs in that category.

I believe that people should leave other people the hell alone. If a white man wants to marry a black woman, another white man, or both of those at the same time and then some, the government has no business deciding on whether they can or not. Protecting children, animals, etc. is an important thing, but so is people's right to decide how to run their own families. No easy answers there, and anyone who says they have them should be treated with caution.

Arable land should not be used for suburban developments, it should be used for farming. And if people have enough land to farm and want to farm it, they should be able to do so.

Religion, like fire, is neither good nor bad, it's all in what you use it for. People who use religion to damage others should be treated like pyromaniacs - which also gets again into definitions, so is also complicated.

Just because something is complicated doesn't mean it's not worth trying to figure it out.

At some point, people need to take responsibility for themselves. More definition problems, granted, but hashing them out is worth doing.

No one should have to starve or die of exposure so long as there is a surplus of food and housing around. Doesn't mean it has to be fancy food or luxurious housing, but no one should have to go hungry, even if you know for a fact that they are a complete loser and lazy and self-sabotaging and also incredibly annoying. Workfare, if handled right, is a good thing. "Here's some stuff that wants doing. Go work on that, and we'll feed and house you. Got small children? OK, watching them also wants doing." Everyone can do something useful, and should. Not doing anything useful is bad for people.

Someone dying because they couldn't afford to get a filling filled or a cycle of penicillin for an infection is also ridiculous and should never happen.

Fighting in foreign wars should be volunteer-only and people should never be forced to stay once their tours are up. If enough people to fight said war don't volunteer for it, that's a clear vote that the people aren't in favor of the war. People who don't want to risk their own lives for a war shouldn't deride the patriotism of others who are similarly fond of their own lives, but that's manners, not something I'd ever want to legislate. You don't generally have a lot of trouble finding people to volunteer to protect their homes when the enemy is at the gate. And if the enemy has made it past the gate, you have a perfect right to shoot him.

I consider myself a liberal, just for the "leave everyone the heck alone" stance, if nothing else, and for believing that there are in fact commonly-held resources (the water table, farmland...) that people should be prevented from abusing.

P.S. I consider the right to informed consent to be the basic one. Anyone proposing to override someone's consent has better have really good reasons. Also, as I said in my first paragraph, the government is to keep the moneyed and powered from running roughshod over everyone else. It is not to help them do so, not is it to take up their mantle and do it itself (such as the proposed North Woods National Park in northern Maine would do).